Monday, December 5, 2016

There were nine of us at
the reading of poems by an assortment of authors. Vikram Seth was the
token Indian; the other poets were from England, America, Ireland,
and France. Almost four centuries of poetry were covered.

We had no singing this
time, but had Joe learnt to rap, his poet could have been rendered in
her original voice. Pamela could not attend for some obligation she
had to fulfil on behalf of her husband.

Sunil, Thommo, Priya, Hemjit, Shoba

It is unusual in modern
times for poetry to be crafted to adhere to a form and structure.
Unusually, we had a triolet, a sonnet, and an Alexandrine mixed with
hymn meter, iambic tetrameters, and modern rap.

Sunil, Thommo, Priya, Hemjit

This was the last session
of the year and a new set of novel selections has been made for 2017.
We start off with Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
on Jan 13, and the following month Kavita has invited the crew with
their dearly beloveds to her estate in Thodupuzha, about 2 hours
journey by road. It will be poetry in a pastoral setting.

KumKum & Saras

Here we are at the end of
the session, after enjoying cucumber and cheese sandwiches
(KumKum) and cupcakes (Shoba).

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

It was
the last novel of the year, Evelyn Waugh's languorous attempt to
capture the nostalgia of youth. The deep friendship between Charles
Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, the son of an aristocratic family, is at
the centre of the novel in the first half of the book; it leaves its
shadowy bitter scent in the final section as Sebastian descends into
incurable alcoholism.

Meanwhile,
Charles with an artistic bent goes off to study art in Paris and paints pictures, full of charm, for the English public. Later, he seeks
adventure in the New World and returns in triumph to an exhibition of
his exotic paintings of Mexico and S America, arranged by his wife,
Celia. At about this time, Julia, the sister of Sebastian enters his
life and both have an extramarital fling. The love is
short-lived.

All
this takes place against the impending crisis of a war to come, and
it is the billet of Charles’ battalion at Brideshead, the home of
the Flytes he knew so well, that starts off the novel as a re-visit.
It's impossible not to fall in love with the Oxford University
described in the early scenes, although there is very little about studies
and much more about escapades, dining, going for rides, encounters with
women, and so on; the only don in the novel is venal and comic.

There
are many snatches of comedy in a satirical vein: Charles’ father Edward Ryder,
Lord Marchmain in Venice, Rex Mottram taking Catholic instruction,
the absurdity of an aristocratic Catholicfamily marooned in Anglican
England, and so on. But above all it is Oxford we remember:

‘still
a city of aquatint’,

‘her
autumnal mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer
days’,

Friday, October 21, 2016

Eight of us met for a
session of poetry with the keen anticipation of celebrating the award
of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan, announced only a week
before. The singer, songwriter, and composer has not responded to the Swedish Academy as
of this writing, but his many admirers were thrilled.

Pamela, Saras, Priya, Thommo

Thommo came along with his
guitar promising to sing some Bob Dylan numbers at the session and
lead the group in a sing-along of his most well-known song, Blowin'
in the Wind. This we did and you have clips of the singing linked
to this post below.

We were glad to use the
session to wish Sunil for his fifty-fifth birthday. The readers were
treated to samosas, cake and coffee. Sunil could not be present as
he had to go on tour to their estate in Kodagu.

We are eleven members now.
It's a convivial group and all of us try our best to prepare for the
readings and attend the sessions for the sheer enjoyment they
provide. The question was posed by KumKum whether we could find two more faithful members to attend, since two regulars, Gopa and Talitha, have left town.

Kavita, Thommo, Shoba

Once again we encourage
everyone to consult the lists of Poems and Poets recited to-date when
choosing selections. Besides, there is a very powerful feature
provided by Google in the Search this blog facility at the
right of the main page.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

It
is good to acknowledge how well the group of readers was shepherded
by Priya during the absence of Joe, a testament to the lasting worth
of communal reading that every committed member of KRG feels. For
Joe's part the absence was more physical than mental, for his mind
would keep coming back to how he could contribute from afar. It is
now established that the simple use of the Dropbox enables
full-fledged participation at a distance, barring only the real-time
interaction.

Priya, Pamela, Zakia, Shoba, KumKum

Humour
has been a part of the annual reading at KRG, and some of our readers
have a predisposition to this genre, which makes people laugh about
absurd situations and improbable causes. Those have been the most
enjoyable sessions, though who could miss the abundant humour in
novels such as Herzog? As Dickens said: There is nothing in
the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

Priya, Pamela, Zakia

We
congratulate Shoba who has been appointed to the Alliance Française
in Kochi and will assume her job there from Oct 2016. We hope she
remains a faithful reader at KRG. We are sad to bid goodbye to Gopa,
a diligent reader who left Kochi to join her husband, Michael, in
Bengaluru, after an ailment. Raksha will miss her even more than we
do.

Preeti wearing costume jewelry her sister designs and markets

KumKum
has been a cheerleader for KRG events and her being on Whatsapp has
increased the intensity of exchange between readings. Her readiness
to keep in touch with the readers has been a source of convivial
togetherness which I want to acknowledge.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

The session opened with Joe’s sonorous reading of poems by Christopher Marlowe. He had selected poems from different works of the playwright and poet and the listeners were treated to an excellent choice that made them laugh and delight in the master’s works, so much so that Thommo remarked that Joe seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly in faraway California. The remark was because of Joe’s choice of the poem where the poet enjoys an amorous afternoon.

I clinged her naked body, down she fell,

Judge you the rest: being tired she bad me kiss,

Jove send me more such afternoons as this

KumKum’s recorded poems were heard next. She read Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. The work Everyone should have an abandoned Garden ...was relished by the members.

Poems read in absentia felt more poignant and the virtual voices invited keener listening and created a heightened atmosphere. Of course, live renditions cannot be replicated but virtual recordings caught members' attention strongly. Her final poem on the Garden of Eden drew a wry comment from Thommo, who said that all hell broke loose in the Garden of Eden that we know of!

The dropbox feature was tried at the reading and succeeded to a great extent in rendering the session paperless. This was discussed but everyone realised that a greater degree of familiarisation is needed.

Saras read Margaret Atwood’s poems, remarking that she was a difficult author to read. Her poems too were quite dark. She chose You Begin because of the images of the poet playing with toys with her daughter. Moving In The Burnt House, the other poem, had very stark imagery. The members recalled the reading of her novel The Blind Assassin and of the many twists and turns in the novel, which made ti almost almost like a Hindi TV serial. Saras mentioned that Atwood was the poet laureate of Canada.

Thommo said that he had been extremely tied up with the deadline for editing a book and hence could not devote much time to selecting and researching a poet. He read two poems - Atlantis - A Lost Sonnet by Eavan Boland and Litany by Billy Collins, an American poet laureate.

Atlantis was discussed with reference to other cities that have disappeared in time, like El Dorado and Dwaraka. Thommo said Atlantis was the myth of nostalgia. He had been to the present town of Dwaraka on his road trip across India in a Tata Nano at the western tip of India. Saras narrated in brief the mythological story of the disappearance of Dwaraka, for Zakia and Shehnaz wished to know the historical references.

Zakia read Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into The Good Night, a popular poem with members which has been read several times before. Please consult the List of earlier poems read, which is on our website when selecting.

Priya read American poet and Pulitzer winner Conrad Aiken. She chose the poet as his birthday fell on the day of the reading, August 5.

Though she chose Aiken on a happy coincidence, she was happy to have chanced upon a contemporary of Eliot and Ezra Pound. She told the members about his life history with a horrific childhood incident that never overtly came across in the poems, but can be discerned in subtle psychological interpretations.

She read - Chance Meetings, All Things Lovely and Music I Heard; the latter has been set to music by a number of composers including Leonard Bernstein and Henry Cowell.

Priya felt that the poems had the laboured feel of a Romantic/Victorian strain, unusual for a poet writing in the 20th century. Here is an example:

Come back, true love! Sweet youth,

Remain!--

But goldenrod and daisies wither,

And over them blows autumn rain,

They pass, they pass, and know not whither.

The reading ended with all the five readers agreeing that the session, though poorly attended, was a fine evening at which Literature was the winner once again.

Priya felt that it all turns on a few like-minded members making that extra effort so that the group, though of little note in the present-day commercial world, is kept going and enriches the lives of the members.

The Poems

Joe — Christopher Marlowe

A portrait discovered at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge in 1952 that is purportedly of Christopher Marlowe

A much anthologized poem of Marlowe’s, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love was recited by me in March 2011. At this session I want to take up more of Marlowe’s poetic and dramatic work.

Like Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was born of humble parents, and went to grammar schools. He was brilliant, won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, got his BA and displayed the bold tendencies that later developed. He did afree translation in couplets of Ovid’s Amores concerning the delights of illicit love. Marlowe wrote many plays. Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus are the most prominent. Shakespeare knew Marlowe’s work well and his plays contain many references to Marlowe, e.g. ‘Come live with me and be my love’ which is the opening of Marlowe’s famous poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love occurs exactly in The Merry Wives of Windsor by Shakespeare. There are many parallels in their lives. Both were humbly born in 1564. They attended good grammar schools where the curriculum was primarily: Latin, literature, rhetoric and oratory. Like Shakespeare Marlowe started early in the theatre, but directly as a dramatist. Recent scholarship by the editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare has established by text analysis with the aid of computers that Marlowe co-wrote Henry VI, Parts One, Two and Three. “We can now be confident that they didn’t just influence each other, but they worked with each other. Rivals sometimes collaborate,” said Gary Taylor of Florida State University, one of the four general editors. Seehttps://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/oct/23/christopher-marlowe-credited-as-one-of-shakespeares-co-writers

He took his BA at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. While there Marlowe translated Ovid into rhyming couplets using the diction and rhythms of common speech:

In summer’s heat and mid­time of the day

To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay,

One window shut, the other open stood,

Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,

Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun

Or night being past, and yet not day begun.

Such light to shamefaced maidens must be shown,

Where they may sport, and seem to be unknown.

Then came Corinna in a long loose gown,

Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down:

Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed

Or Laïs of a thousand wooers sped. I snatched her gown, being thin, the harm was small,

Marlowe travelled abroad apparently on missions for the queen. His first Play, Dido, Queen of Carthage, may have been written around the time he was absconding from Cambridge although registered for the MA. His first great public success was Tamburlaine the Great written after he left Cambridge at the age of 23. He had a violent streak in him and killed a man called Bradley in a fight by stabbing him. Marlowe had several other violent encounters in London, all recorded.

Marlowe indeed could take flight in rhetoric. Here he is in Tamburlaine Part 2, Act II, Scene VII, lines 21­29:

Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend

The wondrous architecture of the world,

And measure every wandering planet's course,

Still climbing after knowledge infinite,

And always moving as the restless spheres,

Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest,

Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,

That perfect bliss and sole felicity,

The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

Marlowe could write verse of great beauty too:

With milk­-white harts upon an ivory sled

Thou shalt be drawn amidst the frozen pools,

And scale the icy mountains' lofty tops,

Which with thy beauty will be soon resolv'd:

[Tamburlaine Part One, Act I, Scene II, lines 98­101]

Here is a speech from Doctor Faustus written by a self-professed atheist. It shows that Marlowe whatever his personal beliefs, could transcend with his imagination and inhabit the mind of a religious person:

FAUSTUS: Ah, Faustus.

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,

And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!

Stand still, you ever­moving spheres of heaven,

That time may cease, and midnight never come;

Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make

Perpetual day; or let this hour be but

A year, a month, a week, a natural day,

That Faustus may repent and save his soul!

O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,

The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

O, I'll leap up to my God!­­ —Who pulls me down?­­—

See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!

One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!­­—

Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!

[O lente, lente currite, noctis equi! is a lover’s plea that the night’s horses will delay the coming of the dawn.]

Hero and Leander tells the two lovers’ story only up to the point they consummate their passion. He probably wanted to take it further but death intervened. It also has passages that speak of the desire of man for man. Here is a passage depicting homoerotic love as Neptune the sea-­god envelops the naked limbs of Leander when he swims the Hellespont:

He watched his arms and, as they opened wide

At every stroke, betwixt them would he slide

And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance,

And, as he turned, cast many a lustful glance,

And threw him gaudy toys to please his eye,

And dive into the water, and there pry

Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb,

And up again, and close beside him swim,

And talk of love.Leander made reply,

"You are deceived; I am no woman, I."

Two much quoted lines about spontaneous love come from this poem:

Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

One fateful day Marlowe went for lunch with others and after the meal there was a dispute as to who should pay the bill. Marlowe struck first but Frizer, his opponent, wrenched the dagger from Marlowe and gave him a deep wound over his right eye. Marlowe died instantly. And thus came the inglorious end of a dramatist and poet whose few works that survive have such merit, that many think he would have been a worthy rival to Shakespeare had he not died before he was 30.

Thomas Nashe called him ‘one of the wittiest knaves that ever God made.’

I will be reading 4 poems by the Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, who lived from 1924 to 2000. He was born in Germany. In 1935, he and his parents migrated to Pales

tine. He spent the rest of his life in Israel. Amichai is considered one of Israel's important poets. He wrote only in colloquial Hebrew, thus, starting a movement to popularize the ordinary spoken language of the common man.

CJ Mathew, one of KRG's star members, introduced us to Amichai when he read some of his poems, two years ago. The poems I chose are gleaned from the collection The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Amichai (Author), Robert Alter (Editor). It is a thick volume, and most of the poems are translated by Robert Alter himself, and some are by other famous poets, such as Ted Hughes.